Jewish legacy inscribed on genes? | Hacker News Reader

Jewish legacy inscribed on genes?

latimes.com

14 pointskqr222 comments

"But the idea that some groups of people are inherently smarter is troubling to many. Some scientists say it has such racist implications it's unworthy of consideration."

Why is this troubling? What are the racist implications? I thought being more intelligent is a virtue. Or are people afraid that, if there's someone who is smarter than average, clearly there must be someone else who is dumber? In any case, though, a hypothesis does not become more or less valid because of its political or social implications.

Everybody can see that blacks in general (or I suppose with a certain genetic history) can jump higher than average white. The average European descendent can jump higher than the average East Asian.

So what?! You still get Obama and you still get Yao Ming. As long as the rules are the same for everyone (as they should), it's all about individual effort and luck. The average is irrelevant for policy or social efforts. It should be only of scientific interest.

"Everybody can see" is exactly the problem. Can you really see? Can blacks really jump higher, or are there just more blacks playing basketball because it was the best way to get into a good college to play basketball (so more jumpers -> more high jumpers)? Are Europeans better in soccer than Americans because of their genes, or because more people play soccer in Europe, so it is more likely to discover the soccer talents?

Are blacks better musicians, because of their genes, or were there simply more black musicians because not many other professions were open to them - and there being so many good ones was just a result of statistics?

Are jews genetically disposed to be good with money lending, or are they good money lenders because they were not allowed to take on many other professions? So many jews became money lenders and ended up getting rich?

Not claiming that genes don't affect IQ, but to claim that it is not dangerous to talk about such things? I don't care much about jumping high, but if somebody would claim that my IQ is most likely 10 points less than that of somebody with another race, I would not like it much. I suppose you don't see many black scientists pushing the "genetic IQ" hypothesis. What is your race, just wondering?

Worse, as is explained very well in "The Logic Of Life" by Tim Harford, there is such a thing as rational racism. It goes like this: if employers expect on average black applicants to a job would be less qualified than whites, it would make economical sense for them to ignore black applications. In turn it would make sense for blacks to not care much for education, because employers will ignore them no matter what. It is explained better in the book (they run a test with randomly assigning black and white names to CVs, the CVs with black names received significantly less job interview invitations). Meaning: if it was known that a certain race had a lower IQ, it would be economical for employers to not consider them for good jobs, even if there could be occasional outliers of smarter people.

Perhaps "everybody can see" was a bit offhand, since I don't specialize in these matters. But the point I was trying to make actually was this: In general in daily life, we should not care about the average but about the individual. I'm East Asian born in Europe so I've been aware of all kinds of stereotypes from both sides, good and bad. And you know what: It's just a blur and too broad a brush to paint the picture of my life or my decisions or capabilities etc. Same for other people. Of course I make snap judgments about them if I don't know them but they usually have to do with demeanor, language, clothing, anything and race is no factor usually (unless on a basketball court ;)

As for your last paragraph, however, I've grappled with that too and actually did not come to any conclusion. Obviously, you build filters as you go through life. In fact, if you face the same type of decision problem over and over, it's probably better to make it on a statistical basis rather than evaluate always fresh. But where is the line to discrimination and actually pushing people (who unlike most things adapt) into your framework, I don't know. Positively, statistical decision-making is "accumulating experience" faster; negatively, it's stereotyping. I don't know where the line is.

Still, I hold the line that the fact and truth is what it is, and should not be influenced by "what happens if the conclusion is A?". If we're afraid of truth, whatever it is, then something deeper is wrong and we better try to repair this rather than doctor the truth or our perception of the world.

I am definitely in favor of not letting political correctness get in the way of research. Just thinking certain claims should be extremely well validated before they are being blurted out. And just because there is opposition to some "research" because of political correctness also doesn't imply the correctness of that research.

A flashback in history: some decades ago it was believed that the form of the skull could predict whether you are a criminal or not. Harmless research? Surely not, if you had the wrong kind of skull.

P.S.: I take it with Asian family background you are on the safe side of the race IQ debate, as Asians are deemed to have an higher IQ than Caucasians on average.

Come on, I don't see why the original authors were "blurting out" their hypothesis. From the article, it sounded like a normal, legitimate way to come up with something in the scientific research process. Science needs communication and as they themselves put it, they expect other researchers to examine the evidence more closely. Just to clarify this: I don't actually have an opinion on this issue; my problem is with the argument that somehow there is legitimate "overhead" to science in terms of social or political consequences or even people's personal pride. We are not in the middle ages anymore.

Sorry, didn't refer specifically to the research from that article, just to the general research surrounding race/IQ. I read the Bell Curve years ago (didn't find it as shocking as expected), and even bothered to dig up some of the articles on twin studies in the libraries (most not being that convincing after all, it is hard to find a lot of twins that were separated as kids). As for the article linked here it is hard to judge it based on the facts given in the article alone. Just wanted to say that it doesn't become more likely just because people are opposed to it out of political motivation.

Don't get your middle age reference: are you claiming that people don't have prejudices anymore? What about your "everyone can see" statement? People still have prejudices, and they affect peoples lives, often in a bad way. You think something like "recognising criminals by their skulls" could not happen anymore today? I think it could - just think of the immunisation/autism debate.

Edit Re "blurting out": there are so many silly claims with respect to genetics, it is so easy to claim things must be so and so because of genetics. Hence my "blurting out" blurt.

The middle age thing was just a reference to the general struggle between the church representation of the world and the emerging scientific approach. I agree with you on the racial prejudices. They are definitely not dead; many people seem to need them somehow. I suspect, though, that genetic profiling will become a more potent issue in the future.

It's racist because of what the inverse implies, also mentioned in the article. It also plays off common stereotypes about Jews as inherently smarter / more astute than other groups, which is absurd.

As others have mentioned, this whole thing is silly. Correlation does not imply causation. One obvious potential reason for higher performance on IQ tests is the high value placed on academics and education by many minority communities in general.

Sounds like pure speculation to me. But hey, the researcher has read 15 textbooks on genetics, so he must know what he is talking about. Not saying it is impossible, but there are a lot of other factors to consider, too.

It's far from speculation, very reasonable in fact. The genetic diseases were all related to fat metabolism. There have also been studies that show the quality of insulation on neurons (from fat) correlate strongly with intelligence. It's not a very big leap at all to see a connection between those disorders and increased intelligence.

"Jews didn't intermarry, keeping their gene pool closed. They were subjected to periodic persecution, which kept the population from outgrowing its professional niche."

It hasn't been pleasant, but we have to be smart in order to survive.

This story is a perfect example of flawed logic that we see so often here on hn that whenever someone points it out, they immediately get downvoted.

So, one more time, here goes:

correlation != causation

It goes something like this...

"We have observed a and b together very often. Therefore, a must have caused b."

Kinda reminds me of the garbage strike in New York City years ago. Garbage piled up on the streets and rats appeared everywhere. One of these "experts" probably would have said, "Look at all the garbage these rats brought."

Maybe we need a new "correlation != causation" flag.

Where does the article claim causation?

"It would be easy to test the theory, said Steven Pinker, a Harvard cognition researcher: "See if carriers of the Ashkenazi-typical genetic mutations score higher on IQ tests than their noncarrier siblings."

Cochran and Harpending readily acknowledge the need for such experiments. But they have no plans to do them. They say their role as theorists is to generate hypotheses that others can test."

   > Kinda reminds me of the garbage strike in New
   > York City years ago. Garbage piled up on the streets 
   > and rats appeared everywhere. One of these "experts" 
   > probably would have said, "Look at all the garbage 
   > these rats brought."

:-) I also like: "Most traffic accidents are caused by people who have a driver's licence. Therefore, the driver's licence is responsible for traffic accidents."

Uh, actually the driver's license causation seems to make sense (in an environment where drivers have to have a driver's license). If yu took away all driver's licenses, accidents might go down. If you took away the rats, the garbage would stay.

well, if you take away all driver's licences, I guess that includes the driver's licences of police officers. Which would make it relatively difficult to enforce the rule that "drivers have to have a driver's licence"... [Porsche vs police bicycle...] :-)

roadblocks?

It's called a theory. Then you try and prove it using the scientific method. Then we move on to other problems.

So is causation impossible to prove?

It seems like every single study ( at least those reported in the media) suffers from the correlation != causation problem.

We can never be sure of anything (because everything could just be a simulation in a computer etc.). We can only be certain to a degree. I suppose just finding some causation is not sufficient to make a new scientific discovery. It can give pointers for directions of research, but then somehow you need to make the new hypothesis testable.

http://xkcd.com/552/

single page: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-sci-jewish...

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